LITERATURE ON THE TUBE

The relationship between television and literature is, at best, a shaky one. Every so often it can produce such strapping offspring as last season`s

''Lonesome Dove,'' but one does not generally consider the TV-lit match a fruitful one.

Ron Powers was here a couple of days ago to explain the part he is playing in changing that. Powers is a man who knows words and television. The former TV/radio critic for the Sun-Times and winner of the first Pulitzer Prize for television criticism (1973), Powers has written books and was once one of network TV`s most articulate voices as media commentator on ''CBS Sunday Morning.''

He is now co-host of ''The Classics,'' the Learning Channel`s ambitious attempt to lure viewers to words by first showing them pictures-in this case, moving pictures: 10 classic films that include ''Rain,'' ''A Farewell to Arms'' and ''Of Human Bondage.''

This is the first time the network has incorporated feature films into its programming. The rest of June will feature ''Cyrano De Bergerac,''

''Nicholas Nickelby'' and ''Of Human Bondage.'' They air on consecutive weeks at 6:30 p.m. Mondays, 3 p.m. Tuesdays and at 6 a.m. and 11 p.m. Sundays. Powers and Jay Parini, who teaches literature at Middlebury College, introduce each film and engage in lively and informed discussions about the relationship between the film and its source-the changes in plot and character, interesting anecdotes and fascinating trivia. All of it is intended to makes readers of viewers.

During their discussion of ''A Farewell to Arms,'' for instance, they mentioned Ernest Hemingway`s fear that the film would cripple book sales (it didn`t).

''We are the Siskel and Ebert of high culture,'' Powers said. ''We share our enthusiasm about the books from which these movies were made. Hearing good talk about good books, I like to think, prods the listener toward the books. We are offering exposure to good language, to the magic of words. The hope here is that you will be challenged to read and re-read the authors whose works we are discussing.''

Hooking potential readers through movies is just another example of the innovative ways the Learning Channel uses the power of television.

''Our idea has always been to use TV as a learning experience,'' said Ed Dooley. ''We are now the same size as HBO, and that tells me there is a demand for what we are offering.''

Indeed, it nows serves about 17 million viewers nationwide; on July 1, it will expand its program schedule to 24 hours.

Powers is increasingly pleased with his relationship with The Learning Channel, with which he is planning a couple of other projects. He is also working on a nonfiction book about two American towns and writes a monthly coulmn for ''GQ'' magazine (his last piece was a paean to Norman Mark, the WMAQ-Ch. 5 entertainment reporter, who used to compete on the TV-crit beat with Powers when Mark wrote for the Daily News).

''Last year I hosted `Spirit of Place` (a wonderful series of visits by filmmakers to America`s towns and cities) for the Learning Channel, this year it`s `The Classics,` '' Powers said. ''I feel like the Walter Alston of TLC, getting a new contract every year.

''But I am doing the sort of television that I believe is good and valuable television. This is an affirmation of what I`ve railed against all these years. When I was writing television criticism in Chicago, Sig Sakowicz once said to me, `Okay, so what would you do if you had a show?` Well, Sig, I`m doing it.''

`Day`s End`

As far as television experiments go, ''Day`s End'' was a relatively harmless if generally distasteful late-night test. Originally intended as an eight-week stab at getting ABC some viewers after ''Nightline,'' the program was allowed to wander aimlessly through is 11 p.m.-to-midnight hour. And after three months of increasingly poor ratings, ABC has pulled the plug.

The show was conceived as a quick-take digest of ''the day in television,'' but it never gave the news of the day anything but cursory attention and instead concentrated on trivia and chatter.

When it premiered in March, I wrote that the show was ''so fraught with technical problems, cartoon graphics and imbecilic chatter that it seems not a real show but an SCTV sendup.''

Subsequent viewings did nothing to change my mind; the show`s chatter got even more imbecilic, if anything. The principal culprit was Ross Shafer, co-host with the bland Spencer Christian, weatherman on ''Good Morning America.'' (They were often joined by a guest-female-host-for- a-night, none distinguished). Shafer was a studied and rather contemptibly smug fellow who astonished viewers with both his mangling of the English language and his delight in his own inane wit.

WLS-Ch. 7 has gone back to broadcasting movies at 11 p.m. while awaiting the newtwork`s next test-tube baby.